Managing and Supporting IT Systems Wiki
Welcome to the Managing and Supporting IT Systems Wiki A1 - Live System Management An IT Support Technician needs to be able to provide technical support to users. They need to be able to manage users accounts. This involves creating and setting their passwords, account information (provided by users) and setting up policies for users. These policies allow the company to work more efficiently by making sure its users won't be playing games, surfing the internet and watching inappropriate content. Another thing support technicians must do is set up and run routine backups and, if need be, restores as well. Backups are done in case of an employee deletes work and need it restored, natural disasters could put you out of business. Backing up is also a great way to ensure peace of mind, just knowing your data and files are safe in case anything happens is good, and the business won't lose much or any money. The technician also needs to be running frequent security scans on the computers and devices in the company. Antivirus needs to be UpToDate and scanning frequently. As well as this they need to make sure that the applications and OS's on the computers and devices are UpToDate. This makes sure that the security is the best it can be, as most updates are security ones. A2 - System Maintenance and Recovery If something goes wrong within the company, E.G: a disaster like a fire or a flood, the IT technician should be able to deal with this and switch the servers to a warm or cold site to get them back up and running. This is to keep the customers happy. A cold site is just a building the companies take their old or new servers and set up in this building. This is useful for companies or schools that don't need to be back up and running quickly when a disaster happens. A cold site doesn't normally cost much and is a good backup plan if anything were to go wrong. A warm site is a site with equipment already in. The business can move into a hot site within a couple of hours, this is quite expensive as the company has to buy two of everything and put one onsite and one offsite. This is best for companies that require their servers to be online almost all of the time. Finally a hot site is where the company has an exact working copy of their servers, however, this is in a different location. The backups are done to this server so it's ready to go straight away with little to no downtime. This is very expensive, so it is not ideal for small/medium companies. The technician is also responsible for supervising the other network staff. They need to make sure they are doing their job and working efficiently. If they are not doing their job the company will lose money, and more importantly customers. A3 - System and Network Management Tools A technician has to manage a lot of servers, PC's, laptops and (if the company provides company phones) mobile devices. they all need to be UpToDate and working properly. If the company is trying or using the BYOD (bring your own device) then the technician also needs to have made sure that they are connected on that and it is all UpToDate with drivers and software. For more benefits of BYOD: ☀https://www.huffingtonpost.com/parker-beauchamp/byod-in-the-workplace-ben_b_10973342.html Another thing the technician has to do is be able to create and be able to deploy desktop disk images. There are curtain software's that help this process, the software creates a copy of everything on the computer, this includes boot information, settings and data. This means in case of a natural disaster etc. the data on the computers is backed up and can be taken from the cloud/external hard drive and put onto a new machine. This helps the company start again efficiently if they need to. Disk imaging software should be able to schedule automatic backups, backup mobile phones and tablets, backup Windows 7, 8, 10, Mac OS to the cloud or external hard drive. It should also be able to reinstall the entire system, from applications to individual files. A software that has all of these features is Acronis True image. More information about Acronis True Image: ☀https://www.acronis.com/en-us/personal/computer-backup/ Acronis True Image Tutorials: ☀https://www.acronis.com/en-gb/tutorials/ATI2017/ Remote access to the employees computers is also very important as if the technician is away they can log in from anywhere or from their computer securely and fix the issue. Team Viewer is a good software to use for this as it is encrypted so if there is a breach the hacker wont be able to log into the computers without a password/key. This not only helps the company but the technician as well as they could be sick or out of office and log in without having to be there physically. For a tutorial on team viewer: ☀https://www.teamviewer.com/en/support/videos/ A4 - Managing User Support Requests Category:Browse